Obama, failing on moral leadership?

By Frida Ghitis, Special to CNN

Updated 1:49 PM ET, Sat May 4, 2013

Photos: Inside Guantanamo Bay23 photos

Inside Guantanamo Bay – President Barack Obama signed an executive order on January 22, 2009, to close the detention facilities at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, within a year. Nearly six years later, the prison for terrorism suspects remains open. Click through for a look inside the controversial facility. Here, President George W. Bush's official picture is replaced by Obama's in the lobby of the headquarters of the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo on January 20, 2009, the day the latter was sworn in as president.

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Photos: Inside Guantanamo Bay23 photos

Inside Guantanamo Bay – The U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay has held terror suspects since January 2002. Early in the war on terror, the Bush administration argued these detainees were "enemy combatants" who didn't have the protections accorded to prisoners of war under the Geneva Conventions. Here, a detainee stands at an interior fence at Guantanamo Bay in October 2009.

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Photos: Inside Guantanamo Bay23 photos

Inside Guantanamo Bay – A Navy sailor surveys the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay in October 2009. In December 2013, Congress passed a defense spending bill that makes it easier to transfer detainees out of the facility.

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Inside Guantanamo Bay – U.S. military guards move a detainee inside the detention center in September 2010. At its peak, the detainee population exceeded 750 men at Guantanamo.

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Inside Guantanamo Bay – A military doctor holds a feeding tube used to feed detainees on a hunger strike at a Camp Delta hospital at Guantanamo in June 2013. In March 2013, the U.S. military announced that dozens of detainees had begun a hunger strike. By that June, more than 100 detainees were on a hunger strike, and more than 40 were being force-fed, military officials said.

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Inside Guantanamo Bay – Muslim detainees kneel during early morning prayers in October 2009. Cells are marked with an arrow pointing in the direction of Mecca, regarded as Islam's holy city.

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Inside Guantanamo Bay – A soldier stands near a placard on the fence line of the detention facility in January 2012.

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Inside Guantanamo Bay – A Quran sits among a display of items isssued to detainees in September 2010. The suspects are given a prayer mat and a copy of the Muslim holy book as well as a toothbrush, soap, shampoo and clothing.

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Photos: Inside Guantanamo Bay – A U.S. military guard walks out of the maximum security section of the detention center in September 2010.

If any doubt remains that the world stands shivering in a cold moral vacuum -- devoid of meaningful leadership -- they are quickly fading.

The starkest example came in Washington on Tuesday, when President Barack Obama, inarguably the world's most powerful man, stood before the press and recited a series of positions, some of them built on solid moral arguments, only to conclude that there is not much he can do to turn them into reality.

Obama explained at length why the world cannot tolerate the use of chemical weapons in Syria, why the U.S. should not keep open the prison at Guantanamo Bay, why Washington is acting foolishly with the infamous "sequester" -- the blunt and unjust budget cutter. But then he went on to explain just how difficult it is to do anything to solve these problems.

The president is smart and eloquent. But leadership, especially for someone who has achieved that level of power, requires three elements: It must communicate a clear vision and a commitment to its realization; it must mobilize and inspire others into action; and it must produce results.

Frida Ghitis

Proclaiming high standards only to leave them unachieved demoralizes those you might have hoped to inspire. Rather than bending the arc of history toward justice, it unleashes a chain reaction of disenchantment.

Consider the Guantanamo prison. You might have thought Obama was a candidate again when he declared, just as he did years ago on the campaign trail that America must shut down the prison. Holding prisoners without charges and trial, he said persuasively, is "contrary to who we are." It's not just an ethical question, it is a practical matter. "It hurts us in terms of our international standing. It lessens cooperation with our allies on counterterrorism efforts. It is a recruitment tool for extremists. It needs to be closed."

He might have added that Guantanamo is also the world's most expensive prison, costing about $800,000 per prisoner per year, or some $800 million each year.

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Everyone knows that Congress has made it difficult to close the prison. But legal experts say the Obama administration could do much more and, in fact, "has done little to make good on [its] promise" to shut down the prison. The executive branch, as legal expert David Cole notes, has a number of options, including prosecuting detainees or declaring the transfer of some detainees to other countries is "in the national security interest" of the U.S.

Obama came to office with a mandate to restore America's standing in the world. He went a long way in achieving that simply by not being George W. Bush, but it's difficult to point to real successes in fulfilling his pledge to exert moral leadership.

America and the rest of the world seem frozen in place with major institutions and personalities incapable of responding to challenges.

One can argue that it is not America's job to fix the world's problems, to stop the killings in distant lands even if, as we now know, those killings involve horrific weapons banned by international agreements that set a limit to our inhumanity even in times of war.

I am referring to Syria, which allegedly used chemical weapons in a two-year-old civil war. Taking action to stop the use of chemical weapons is in the interest of everyone on earth, with the possible exception of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Chemical weapons can kill in more brutal ways than other instruments of death. And if they are successfully used, dictators and terrorists will make more of them. They make us all less safe.

Since this problem is not just America's, perhaps we should leave it up to others to act. But who?

Who in the world today has the moral standing and the practical ability to take meaningful action? It would be nice if the conscience of humanity had a way to express itself and make a difference. The obvious place would be the United Nations and its Security Council. But the UNSC is hopelessly mired in power struggles. On this as in so many other issues, the power politics involving Russia, China and the U.S. stop the world from speaking out with one voice.

Obama had repeatedly drawn a "red line" on the use of chemical weapons by the Syrian regime, warning President Bashar al-Assad that using or moving chemical stockpiles was the one thing that would "change my calculus" on that war.

The "red line" has become an object of tragicomic ridicule, especially after Tuesday's press conference. Cartoonists in the Middle East and elsewhere are joking about Obama and his red line, depicting the Syrian dictator painting a red line right over the American president's face.

During his press conference, the president seemed to backtrack. What initially seemed like a clear, if controversial, position suddenly became so complicated and hazy that even the Washington Post editorial board called it a "muddle."

Eventually, the United States will have to take a stand and help Syria's rebels, without sending American troops into its civil war. But so far, Obama's equivocations are exposing America's self-proclaimed place as "leader of the free world" to ridicule.

Sure, Obama faces a stubborn Congress that makes his life difficult. And Americans' exhaustion with wars overseas undoubtedly makes him more reluctant to act, but the president's persuasive powers can be deployed to good effect, especially since meaningful results can be achieved without the proverbial American boots on the ground.

Of course, the problems he has to deal with are difficult and often offer choices between bad and worse. But the time is right for a new display of conviction, of effectiveness, of leadership.